About 13 years later, K. K. Bene Jeshurun was formed as the second congregation in town, by a group of German immigrants, some of whom had belonged to K. K. Bene Israel.

A third congregation was created in 1847 by a group who felt there should be a shul in the upper part of the city. They called it Ahabath Achim – the Society of Brotherly Love. Some of the congregants’ names are familiar today – L. Goldsmith, Samuel Weil, Charles and Henry Kahn, M.W. Fechheimer, and I. Bloch.

Even before building a synagogue, they started talking about buying land for a cemetery, and formed a committee to search for land.

Charles Kahn, one of the founders of Ahabath Achim, was a successful businessman. He and his family decided to follow the lead of other wealthy Cincinnatians, and he bought three acres of land on Ludlow Avenue in the village of Clifton, about five miles from the basin area where most Cincinnatians lived. After all, the coal and wood fires from all the growing industry made breathing pretty difficult in town, so those who could afford to moved to the suburbs, and took the new iron horse into town to work.

The tale is told that Mr. Kahn sent plans for his intended hillside home to the village authorities for approval, and at a council meeting a few days later, a lot of time was spent debating whether the village could (or should) exclude Jews. Ultimately, the village solicitor persuaded some of the more influential citizens to try to accomplish the segregation of Clifton by indirect, rather than direct means.

The next day, a self-appointed committee of “gentlemen” – including Tyler Davidson, whose home was (and still is) directly above the Kahn land – visited him at his place of business. They did everything they could to subtly persuade him that he didn’t want to build his home there, and that his family wouldn’t be happy in Clifton. Mr. Kahn argued that indeed he did want to build there, and his family was excited about living in Clifton. Finally, so the story goes, one of the visitors stopped beating around the bush, and told him that the residents of Clifton didn’t want any Jews living there.

Well, Mr. Kahn decided to please two groups of people at the same time. First, he decided not to risk being ostracized and hated by his new neighbors in Clifton, and called off plans to build his home. Second, he went to the cemetery committee of Ahabath Achim and sold them his three acres. And then, according to legend, he sent a note to the businessmen who had visited him and told them: “If you do not care to have a Jew living near you, you cannot object to dead Jews, and you shall have many of these, for many years, in no condition to offend you.”

So was born the JCGC site in Clifton. There are approximately 1,850 burials in the cemetery. About 15 years ago, approximately 200 unsold sites were taken off the market, as a portion of the hillside had become unstable. There are only a few sites still available. The cemetery remains a peaceful hillside setting in the middle of a quiet neighborhood.

What happened to Ahabath Achim? Well, in the 1860s it began to follow some of the Reform practices that were expanding in Bene Israel and Bene Yeshurun. In 1872, an organ was introduced, and the congregation took a posture somewhere between strict Orthodox practices and the Reform approach to Judaism.

But as times changed, Ahabath Achim found that they could not exist separately, and they merged with Congregation Sherith Israel in 1906. The merged congregation continued until 1931, in a new building — the Reading Road Temple, in South Avondale, when the congregation merged yet again with Bene Yeshurun, and formed The Isaac M. Wise Temple. Reading Road’s rabbi, Samuel Wohl, became the senior rabbi of the new 900-family congregation.

From the 1931 merger until JCGC was formed, Clifton was operated by United Jewish Cemeteries, an association formed by Bene Israel and Bene Yeshurun in 1850.

David Urbansky was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry in battle at Shiloh and Vicksburg during the Civil War. He was the only known Jew and one of only 18 of Ohio’s 310,364 Union soldiers in the Civil War to be so honored. He was one of six Union Jewish soldiers nationally to receive this award. His Medal of Honor is housed at The American Jewish Archives.

Urbansky was born in Prussia in 1843 and came to America with his family when he was 15, settling in Columbus, Ohio. Six months after the Civil War broke out, he enlisted. He served under General Grant and Sherman, eventually attaining the rank of Corporal.

During the Vicksburg campaign, one of the battles ended with Urbansky’s commanding officer seriously wounded lying out in “no – man’s land” between the opposing forces. Urbansky rushed onto the battlefield to pick up his commander and, despite fierce enemy fire, he made it back to the Union line. This act of bravery saved the officer’s life and contributed to Urbansky becoming a recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Urbansky fought in the war without being an American citizen. Upon his discharge at the end of the war, he quickly obtained his citizenship papers and soon thereafter married Rachel Henry. They moved to Piqua where they had 12 children and Urbansky prospered selling clothes.

After a long illness, Urbansky passed away in 1897. The funeral was held at his house in Piqua with Rabbi Phillipson of Rockdale Temple officiating. The burial followed at Piqua’s Cedar Hill Jewish cemetery.

After his death, his family moved to Cincinnati. When his widow, Rachel, died in 1914, she was interred in our Walnut Hills cemetery and the family had Urbansky’s remains moved to Cincinnati and placed next to her.

In 2000 Raymond Albert of Amanda, Ohio, who was a member of the Medal of Honor Historical Society and whose hobby was tracking down the final resting place of Medal of Honor recipients, made his 16th discovery when he discovered David Urbansky’s grave.

A service on December 10, 2000 in our Walnut Hills cemetery marked the dedication of a new stone (pictured above and to the left) provided by the US government to mark Urbansky’s grave as that of a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient. A squad from the 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Reenactment Group fired a 21 gun salute with period rifles and a bugler played taps at the conclusion of the service.

Several people at the service also had been looking for Urbansky’s grave but had been hampered by name variations. Urbansky had served in the army and become a citizen under the name “Orbansky.” He married as Urbansky which continued to be his name until his death in 1897. The family later changed their name to Urban, which is the name on his family’s headstone at Walnut Hills.

It was an accepting community, which even tolerated six men of Jewish persuasion. Of course, it wasn’t possible to live a traditional Jewish existence in such a place, where Saturdays were the big market days, and there weren’t enough people to form a minyan.

Benjamin Lieb – or perhaps it was Laib or Lape – was in his 70s, and not doing well. He called Morris Moses and Joseph Jonas to visit him, and explained that he expected to die soon. He had married and lived his adult life as a Baptist, he told them. . . but his wife had preceded him in death, and his daughters had moved away. He wanted to be buried as a Jew, according to the traditions of his family in the old country, and he wanted to buy a grave in the Jewish Cemetery.

But there was a problem: the thriving little city of Cincinnati, on the far Western U.S. frontier, with only six Jewish men, didn’t have a Jewish cemetery. It didn’t even have a synagogue.

Jonas and Moses realized that they, too, would die someday, and they went to the largest landowner in the area, Nicholas Longworth, and negotiated the purchase for $75.00 of a 25 x 50 foot plot way out on the western edge of the community, on what later became Chestnut Street, 75 feet from the corner of what later became Central Avenue.

A few years later, they bought two more 25-foot lots, and Chestnut Street Cemetery – later called The Old Jewish Cemetery – became the first Jewish burial ground west of the Allegheny Mountains.

The same English immigrants, Joseph Jonas and Morris Moses, who bought the land for the cemetery, were among the small group of Jews who, in 1828 — seven years after the cemetery was created — formed Kehal Kodesh Bene Israel – the Holy Congregation of the Children of Israel – the first Jewish congregation west of the Alleghenies. K.K. Bene Israel today is known as Rockdale Temple.

By 1850, the population of Cincinnati had grown to more than 115,000 people, and Cincinnati was competing with San Fransisco to be the second largest Jewish Community in the nation. Cincinnati fell victim to a terrible cholera epidemic which caused thousands of deaths from 1847 to 1850, and as a result, Chestnut Street became filled. Between 1821 and 1849, when the last burial took place, some 85 Jews were laid to rest there.

As we look at it now, a brick wall surrounds two sides and part of a third side, and across the front is a chain-link fence that is actually owned by the City of Cincinnati. The brick wall was erected around 1873, and is not in good condition. The cemetery has a gate which is kept locked (the only one of JCGC’s cemeteries that is locked). Any one wishing to visit the cemetery may request the key from the JCGC office, and as the cemetery is very small, you can see it very well through the fence without being on the grounds.

Both areas are at the end of the cemetery farthest from the entrance. The larger area will
represent an expansion in available lots in this traditionally Reform cemetery. The other area will
be designated as a Conservative area and will be adjacent to the existing Conservative section of
the Montgomery cemetery, representing an expansion of this section. There are approximately
250 lots available in the new Reform area and 180 lots available in the new Conservative area.
Including these new areas, there are approximately 1,200 total lots available in the cemetery.

Lots can be purchased by contacting William Kahn, JCGC’s independent sales agent.

More information is available by calling 513-961-0178.

Our Marketing Committee was busy with a number of projects, the most noteworthy being the addition of section signage to the Walnut Hills cemetery. The signage will help visitors better navigate the cemetery and adds a nice look to this 162 year old cemetery. We also participated in the Federation’s Give-A-Day and Community Wide Learning days.

We took on a number of major repair projects, including our continuing program of repairing older monuments and foundations in the Price Hill cemeteries, primarily Schachnus and Love Brothers. At the Covedale cemeteries, we removed the chapel, which had fallen into disrepair and was no longer in use. At the behest of the City of Cincinnati, we repaired the Montgomery Rd. sidewalk outside the Walnut Hills cemetery.

Our financial health is good. We sold a record number of grave sites this year, which resulted in the highest revenues of any of our four years. We continue to keep expenses down. As a result, our operating results consistently have been better than what was forecast in the initial projections made when JCGC was being formed.

When JCGC was formed in 2008, each of the 22 contributing cemetery owners was given a limited option at the end of three years to withdraw from JCGC, if certain financial tests to assure the long-term viability of the merged organization, were not met. The three years have passed, we met the tests, and all of the original JCGC cemeteries are pleased to be continuing as part of our organization, contributing to a healthy future for JCGC.

Most importantly, we are fortunate to have the support of our partners: The Jewish Foundation, The Jewish Federation, the rabbinic community, the Friends of JCGC, the community volunteers who helped launch the project and our Board and committee members. Our success is due to the collective efforts and foresight of this group and reflects the strong commitment to community that exists in Cincinnati’s Jewish community.